


The lady and the beast

by tran_quill



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Dark Sansa, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Ramsay is his own warning, Victim Blaming, Warg Robb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-08 14:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11083344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tran_quill/pseuds/tran_quill
Summary: She had been a prey for too long, hunted and locked in a gilded cage.





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

> A nice little chapter to begin...  
> A mix of book and show verse, with Sansa married to Ramsay.

Sansa smoothed her gown neatly upon her lap. She had sewn it herself for her wedding before coming back to Winterfell. It was a simple, woolen gown, with fur trimmed collar and sleeves. Above all it showed the colours of her house, grey and white, and she had carefully embroidered the direwolf of Stark upon the bodice. She was wearing her bride's pink cloak now. Not a good set of colours, she thought, and the garnets in the form of drops of blood were a bit tasteless. Maybe after the war she could direct her ladies in waiting to sew new banners, quartered arms of the two houses of Stark and Bolton.

She wouldn't be the first woman to marry within the enemy family. Whilst she was delicately nibbling at her meal she observed the northern lords and tried to determine who was really on the Bolton side and who was playing the game. She was the last Stark, and she was no more a naive little girl. Though she was still a maiden, she was a woman grown and knew that her position as the Lady of Winterfell could be used to change the balance of power in the north.

She forced herself to look intently at Lord Roose Bolton while he was making a toast to the union of their two great houses, even if the man had always made her uneasy, for a reason. 

« Some more wine, Lady Sansa ? » She remembered why she was there and how the night was supposed to end. Her husband was staring at her with his strange grey eyes, Bolton eyes, but they were warmer than his father's. She had asked him to spare her the bedding ceremony, and he had gallantly acquiesced.

« Thank you, Ramsay, I think I have had enough to drink. » His cheeks were flushed and she saw pride in his eyes. A pie crumb sat in the corner of his meaty lips, and the manner he ate and drank was somehow uncouth. She knew that he had been a bastard and he hadn't always had a castle education. Bastards can be good people like my half-brother Jon, and princes can be monsters, she remembered.

Now the hall was almost empty. Theon Greyjoy stood alone in a corner in his kraken embroidered surcoat. She looked at him with a blend of disdain and pity. Ramsay beckoned to him to lead them to the tower where the chamber sat. He startled and scurried to obey. 

He trembled violently while trying to fasten the clasp on her cloak, a little flayed man upside down in the form of the Bolton sigil. Now that he had taken his leather gloves off, she saw he had but three fingers left on one of his hands. The rest was disgusting stumps.

Ramsay had already departed in a flurry of impatience.

« Let me do it myself, Theon.  
\- My name is Reek, please, please Lady Sansa, never call me otherwise, or he'll punish me harshly. »  
He was trembling from head to toe, his eyes drenched in panic.  
Sansa knew he had been a prisoner in the Dreadfort for months, and she understood he had been tortured. The man was a traitor and has caused the death of her brothers. But she was to become a mother soon and one of her duties will be to spread a little bit of the Mother's mercy in the ruined, besieged Winterfell. So she put a soft hand on his gaunt cheek. That seemed to appease him a little.  
« I will never do anything to have you hurt more.  
\- Please, listen to me, whatever he asks of you, always obey, always, or he will hurt you too. »


	2. Ramsay

Ramsay's wife was a beauty. With her lively blue eyes and auburn hair she looked more like a southron princess than an icy northern wench. Her pale thin skin, translucent like porcelain, gleamed softly in the red light of the bedchamber. She was the last Stark, the key to the North and a prize worthy of Ramsay Bolton.

He had never had a noble young lady, only lowborn bitches, just good enough to be taken into the woods.

And there she was, twiddling with her laces, waiting for what ?

« Reek! My knife. »

Her bodice ripped with a soft cry and let out her unblemished breast. She raised a hand as to cover up again, but she knew better than to deny her lord husband. She glanced anxiously at the creature. It started to creep to the door, but a look was enough to freeze it.

« Don't heed him, Lady Sansa, he's not even a man. Undress me, Reek. And quick. » He slapped him.  
Her gown fell to the floor and she walked primly to the bed.

« Did you know that he thought he would marry you at one point ? A hostage from a grubby backwater. Ain't it, Reek ? That's one little secret he told me. » Trembling hands trembled even more. Ramsay's cock went stiff.

« Open your legs for your husband, Sansa. »  
She was tense, but she looked intently in his eyes. His beautiful noble wife, with her perfect countenance. She had been groomed all her life for this moment, to wed the noble son of a lord and bear him sons. _I wonder if she can see I'm a fraud._  
« Let me see if you are the real deal, m'... my lady. Or were you defiled by Lannister use ?  
\- L...Lord Tyrion never... He didn't force me... I'm a maiden still. »  
Ramsay thrust two fingers sharp in her cunt, that made her squirm and wince.  
He was aware of the creature peeking behind his matted hair, it wouldn't dare look away.

He just had to take her and give her his seed, she was his, willing and tractable. She was all he had wanted. For that he had lied, tricked, tortured, killed, he had been a lickspittle to his father.

Her white, pristine skin glimmered in the hearth light.

She lifted a delicate hand and touched his cheek lightly.

« Ramsay... do you want me to help you ? »

He went limp.

****

Her hand reached between his legs and stroke him softly, it tickled like a small feather. And she tried to kiss him.

_So you're a whore. The Lannisters send their scraps._

« Did the dwarf teach you his dirty tricks ? Seems you're a maiden only in name. I bet he did everything to you except take your maidenhood. You disgust me. »  
He wanted to slap her, but two pale eyes appeared in his thought and a soft, soft voice whispered in his ear, for the thousandth time, about a peaceful land. _Not her face._ Thinking of his father left him impotent again. _Limp as a dead fish._

_The Stark whore._ He pushed her back sharply on the pillows. 

« Reek! Take out your squid disguise, Be quick, or else. »  
Seeing his creature twitch and despair, but obey all the same made his cock stir a little.

That cold bitch of a Stark couldn't take her eyes off Reek, her little hands clutched the sheets like a little bird's claws.

Reek's body was a map of wounds stretched over skin and bones. Burns still festering after months, hazardous cuts that burst with bloated scabs, so much teeth marks. And a rash of secret red pulp exposed to the light, always excruciatingly painful. 

Above all, what left the wench's mouth open in a silent cry was the void, the sunken place between its legs. It was cut in the mock form of whatever prize she thought she kept between her own legs.

It's sorry eyes didn't even acknowledge her, only it's lord.

« See how I punished him for killing your brothers, ain't it, Reek ?  
Now make me ready for my lady wife. And any tooth that graze me, I'll take tomorrow. »

It limped to the bed and began to crawl between his legs. 

While the wretch engulfed him in its mouth, going at it with disgraceful noise, Ramsay took a good, long look at his wife. She was hiding her face behind her hair, and sat trembling with her spread white legs, covered with goose pimples, not daring to move an inch. _Good. Now you know who I am._

Reek's eyes where bound to his own, a wreck of fear, shame and longing. Sucking, choking, drooling. « Lick me wet, Reek. My wife's cunt is dry as stale bread. » The filthy slut was taking him so deep in his gullet he almost spend his seed right there.  
« Time to make a son, Lady Sansa. The first of many, I pray. »  
He kicked the dog out of bed and straddled her. He thrust in hard, feeling her cold, tight flesh. She gasped.

Ramsay closed his eyes and bathed in a red landscape where shapes in pink cloaks chased naked forms, half wolf, half human. Beneath her fur, his prey's pale skin tore up under his knife, with a screeching sound. She howled and howled until he smothered her face with her own flayed pelt and she could only open her mouth underneath in a mute scream. He plunged into a scarlet well of flesh and guts, exulting.

When he opened his eyes, after a heartbeat or half a night he couldn't say, she lay under him, cold and white, her face wet with tears. He pulled out of her cunt, disgusted. His cock was slick with blood. He shook two drops of cum on her belly, just upon her red fur. The likes of her he used to flay before he cut their throats, the only way to make them lively under him.  
_Not even worth a day of hunting in the woods, Stark blood or not._

He tucked her thighs up roughly. « Stay! Don't move, Lady Sansa. I want to be sure my son will grow strong inside you. »

He had never let any of the bitches live, even his old Hornwood wife. Except his pet. So it felt kind of strange to still feel his wife's mute presence in his bed.

« Lick me clean, Reek. » The pet's face was bathed in tears too. Ramsay indulged in a few rough strokes in it's hair while the wretch worshipped his cock. Blood and cum besmeared its chapped lips and it's eyes stayed locked into his obediently.  
« You see, Reek, finally you got to lick her maiden's blood, as you dreamed off as a boy. Ain't it nice from your lord ? »

« Did you think any dog would guard you against his own master, Lady Sansa ? »  
He chuckled.  
« He's a beaten bitch, anything I'll do to you, he'll just look. I guess he likes his eyelids.  
Have a sweet night, my lady wife. »

The last log collapsed in ashes in the hearth and the room went dark. 

*****

Ramsay lit a candle. His face only was visible in the dark chambers.  
The bitch was curled into a ball on the cold floor, shuddering and wailing in its sleep, dreaming dog dreams, maybe of being chased through the dark woods. Ramsay kicked it awake.

His wife laid perfectly still, her breath too regular. He knew she was still awake. Sometimes a deer will try that when caught up by his dogs, as if the hunters will pass by and not maul it. As if.

He pulled down the furs and reached for a white teat. Her skin was clear and thin, unspoiled. He caught some in his teeth and bit mildly, as not to draw blood. She gasped and her eyes opened, full of fear.

« Please Ramsay, be kind, I beg of you.  
-You won't deny your lord and master, my sweet wife ?  
-Please... »

He crawled upon her and sank his teeth into the pale flesh, till he tasted her warm blood. She cried and tried to push him away feebly.

« Fear not, I won't ruin your beautiful face. Nobody will know of our little games.  
-My maids... »  
She was weeping now, her voice was feeble and tremulous.  
He laughed.  
« Your maid will keep her ugly mouth shut, believe me. »  
He enclosed her slender throat in his heavy hands, just below where her winter clothes would be.  
« And so will the cravens you call your bannermen. Some have already turned cloak, the others prefer to shut their eyes and keep their skin. »  
Ramsay's voice had turned into a threatening growl in her ear. He kissed her deeply, smothering her. His hands tightened slightly round her neck, just enough to rouse a struggle. Her white gentle hands turned into little birdy claws and scraped his sides. His cock stirred against her soft belly, engorged with blood.

He punched her in the breast, deliberately, heavily. Her breath caught up in her throat. He seized her hands while she cried and begged indiscriminately now, and rubbed his cock against her cunt. His teeth circled a teat and began to press softly, then tighter and tighter.

She screamed and began to kick and wrestle under him like a wild animal, her eyes white and mad, no different than the lowborn girls.

« Your father, I'll tell your father. » 

That made him bit and jerk and filled his mouth with blood. She screamed again, in a tower muffled by snow, inside her own castle, guarded by his boys. He spat a little pink morsel and growled close to her face, his mouth smeared with her blood.

« My father ? He killed your brother, he thrust his sword deep into his breast and twisted. And your men know that, but they will do nothing out of fear.  
Did you hear the Freys tell how they cut your brother's head and sew his wolf 's unto his bloody neck ? » She sighed. _She didn't know._

« When I'll become warden of the north I will destroy your very name. As soon as you will whelp me a second son I will lock you in a tower forever. I will turn you into a mindless creature like Reek. Maybe I'll change your name too. I won't even fuck you anymore, I will let my dogs do it. »

She didn't cry anymore, she lay onto the pillows, white and still. Her lips parted to let out a low whisper:

« Theon. »

_There is nobody of that name here._

He glanced at his creature. Reek was on his knees, his eyes gazing a thousand leagues away across the snow emptiness. _Maybe it has finally gone mad._

He turned her on her belly and spat on his cock. He fell down on her. She didn't even fight when he spread her arse roughly. 

« Surely the dwarf used you that way, and maybe the mockingbird too. So you were still a maiden. »

He thrust in her hole, tearing her apart. She grunted like a wounded beast, and again and again each time he beat inside her. He took no pleasure when he released his seed inside her, just a wisp of revenge in his bastard's heart, full of hatred and disgust. 

_Bitch, you brought it on you._

He collapsed heavily on top of her and fell asleep forthwith.


	3. Sansa

The whole castle had collapsed upon her and had buried her down and down under piles of rubble and packed snow, crashing her ribs. She couldn't breath, her heart got caught in her throat. Just as she was about to die she woke up in the dark. And she soon wished she could go back to her nightmare. Because her husband lay asleep upon her, in her, smothering her under his dead weight. Not her husband, not even a man, a beast. Not even a beast, as beasts were innocent in their cruelty. _A monster._

She lay still in the dim bedchamber for a long time, panting, hurting from every inch of her body, till weariness won over and took her back down into a bottomless pit.

She woke up startled. He wasn't on her anymore but she was terrified that he would be watching her, his pale eyes opened in the dark, ready to pounce on her. 

The room was still gloomy. The night seemed to have no end. The first of many nights. _But there won't be another night, because I will kill myself. With his dagger, or I will hang myself with my laces, or jump from a tower._

She heard him snoring softly by her side. She turned her head very slowly on the pillow, wet from her tears. He was profoundly asleep. And he was cradling the bony creature in his arms in a grisly mockery of love.

*****

She woke up painfully to a white, snowy daylight.  
He was gone.  
It was just a servant in the room opening the shutters.

« Fetch me some hot water, very hot, I want a bath now » Sansa's voice was feeble and trembling.

The maid turned around, a reedy, scrawny maid in a worn out, discolored pink gown.  
The rag gaped and hanged down upon the flat chest. A creature of nightmare, escaped from the night.

« Sorry m'lady, there are no maids in the castle, only camp followers. Lord Ramsay ordered me to be your maid. »

The creature limped nearer on its naked, mucky maimed feet and looked up behind his matted hair, wriggling his hands.  


*****

The bloodied bath water was cooling round her and she was covered with goose pimples.  
Sansa has been scrubbing herself harshly for a long time, to no avail, as she felt unclean still. No amount of soap could take off his smell. It will be on her forever.

« Tell them to fetch more hot water .»

She heard the bastard's boys mock the wretched creature behind the door. 

_I am a prisoner, not the lady of Winterfell._

*****

« Theon. »  
No answer.

« Reek. »  
The travesty of a maid sneaked closer, a soft cloth held in his crippled hands.  
She wrinkled her nose. « You stink.   
\- Sorry m'lady, I reek. M'lord Ramsay prefers me like that. He doesn't allow me clean clothes. Please... I must obey or he will hurt us more. Please... I'm not a maid... but I'm not a man either. Let me serve you. » 

She let him wash her softly. He shuddered and wept, terrified to disobey and terrified to touch his lord's lady wife.

She seized his wrist, and shivered: it was like touching a skeleton.

« Reek please, this camp followers... they must know about moon tea... have mercy... I can't bear his child... I would rather kill myself. »  
He backed off violently, as if she had just burned him with a hot iron.

*****

She couldn't go back to the marriage bed, even if Reek had changed the sheets.

The sorry excuse of a maid had left her alone. He had told her that he was to come back and help her dress for diner with the lords. Her guards had turned the key to the heavy door.

The window was barred, they didn't even left her a belt or a lace, and he took his knives with him.

She bundled up in the wolf furs and tried to burrow herself in the farthest corner of the bedchamber.

As she fell to a restless sleep, her lips opened in a faint whisper. 

« Lady... »

There was no answer from the snowy, muffled wilderness outside.  
Only a growing hole inside her heart, gnawing at her to turn her into an empty husk.


	4. Sansa

She sat in the middle of the high table, her face pale and still, like carved from ivory. At her side the Bastard (she had sworn to call him only that inside her head). At the right of him was his father, a cold monster, even more than his son. 

At her left the plump lady Bolton blabbered in her high pitched voice. Sansa remembered how the ladies were afraid in besieged King's Landing and sensed that the young woman, who was with child, was only hiding her fear behind her cheering mood. So she tried to soothe her with a talk about ladies' handiwork and sewing, and compliment her about her next childbirth.

She couldn't even swallow a bite of her meat without retching. She knew the men at arms had only sinew and gristle left to eat, and Reek even less. While Ramsay was laughing loudly with his loathsome boys about some wolves haunting the woods and how he would like to ride out and skin them, she beckoned to Reek. She put some meat in one of his dirty hands and he scurried away with it like a mouse.

The din in the great hall dropped down like each time lord Bolton was speaking in his soft, blank voice.  
« If you want to make a sally, Ramsay, you will soon be satisfied. But I doubt Stannis will be as meek a prey as some starving wolves. » He summoned his lord bannermen to hold council in a smaller hall. Sansa took note mentally of who went with him: mostly Freys and Karstarks but also some Umbers and the Bastard himself with his boys in tow. Others like Manderlys or Hornwood men seem to not be privy to their lord 's decisions. 

As soon as the door shut behind them she suggested that lady Walda raise her cup to cheer the brave soldiers who will defend the north against the usurper Stannis. The shy young spouse took to it and raised her cup, her cheeks flushed. The men at arm cheered her and stomped their feet on the ground.

When the blare faded out, Sansa raised her cup too and tried to hide the quaver in her voice.

« Let's drink to the north, and to the leal men who will never accept to see it grasped by an usuper and traitor. »  
The men at arm roared and stomped their feet and beat their horns and cups on the trestle tables.

Sansa looked the lord bannermen in the eyes. Some looked the other side, others hold her gaze while rising their cups in silence.

She saw Luton, one of the Bastard's boys, rush to her from a corner of the hall. He seized her hand roughly and dragged her outside, mumbling that she had to wait for her lord husband in her bedchamber. Reek followed meekly.

*****

Sansa huddled in a corner in the back of the bedchamber, under the warm wolf furs. She tried to find sleep but her only thought was that the Bastard would return after the council to have his ways with her. So she stayed awake, shuddering, the vision of two dead grey eyes in her mind. She prayed to the old gods and the new that he would drink too much and would just collapse on the bed.

She heard wolves howling in the dead of night and she asked herself how they could find game to feed themselves in such a snow storm. The answer was grim, as there have been some skirmishes with Stannis scouts near the castle. _I hope he makes a sally, gets killed and has his corpse torn up by the wolves_. The thought helped her find some sleep before dawn.

*****

The scent was feeble but distinct, the well known mix of musk and fear of a prey. The wolves began to trot, the bigger one in the middle and the little ones on each side. The three of them were gaunt, famished creatures bounding silently in the fresh layer of snow, under a moonless sky. Soon the huge beast leaped, seized the hare by the neck and broke its spine. The big wolf fed itself first. It plunged its fangs in the hot flesh and drank from the warm blood. Then the two little she-wolves took their turn to feed themselves. It was not enough and hunger still groaned in their guts, but it was good to hunt and kill again after days of eating dead, cold flesh.

The great wolf sat on its haunches and howled, rising its snout in defiance to the high prison of grey stones where the men enclosed themselves. The little ones took to the song. 

She howled with the pack, with the great beast that led them, hungry and tired but free from fear for the first time in years. She had been a prey for too long, hunted and locked in a gilded cage, and now it was her hunting and preying. Sansa woke up with the scent of hot blood on her lips.

_I'm not a wolf, I'm a woman._

Sansa stretched herself luxuriously. She felt well rested even after that short night. Then she remembered where she was. 

Reek was opening the shutters to the white, foggy day. The bed was empty and untouched. 

« Where is he ?  
\- The council lasted all night, m'lady. Then somebody found dead soldiers in the yard, and they're trying to find who is killing their men, m'lady. »

The creature's voice was quavering as if it had already been accused. _Maybe there are wolves inside the castle too. The two legs kind._

« Your bath is ready, Lady Sansa .»

*****

Each day Sansa questioned Reek on the whereabouts in the castle. Each day the news seemed to be worse for the Flayed Men. Dissent and quarrels between the lords bannermen, dead men found each morning in the snowy yards, rumours of Stannis' scouts roaming near the castle's wall, men at arms complaining that the lords ate meat while they were left with turnips.

During the day she was the meek and subservient wife waiting faithfully for her lord husband. Lady Walda had needles, soft thread and different fabrics sent to her, to help keep her hands busy during the long day. The Bastard's boys let that in, after some suspicious looks. As a gift to thank lady Bolton she sewed a small cushion and embroidered it with an adornment of silver moons. She asked Reek to bring it to the lady as a token, to remember her of their nice talk in the Great Hall.

But every day, as the grey light of winter turned a darker grey, she could only think about the Bastard's hands on her, in her, his mouth moist on hers, him being everywhere about and inside her body, owning her, despoiling her. That made her skin crawl. Reek was not of any help, as he was even more in dread of his master's return.

She only dared go to sleep after her wretched maid had informed her that the monster will stay with his father, for another night's council. When she knew her husband was sent by his father to try a sally against Stannis vanguard, she preyed heartily for his death.

In her dreams it was different. She was never afraid, she was a fierce wolf hunting in the dark woods with her pack. Even as the game was scarce, the wind and the snow relentless, she felt whole as she has never been since she lost her direwolf. The forest was alive with the sound of little beasts trotting on the snow crust, fleeing before them. She could catch their scent laced with fear, feel their bones crackling and their throats releasing a gush of hot blood as they died.

There were nights of hunger too, but the huge grey beast had no fear of the forms who lay cold on the ground, men wrapped in their dead pelts, inside their hard and shiny shells. When alive they were mostly dangerous to each other, and when dead their cold flesh could fill a wolf's belly till the next hunt.

The woman tore at the dead flesh with them, like them, and when they sat on their haunches to howl at a sickle moon gleaming between two clouds, she howled with them, exulting, till morn.

Her wolf nights let her still hungry, but brisk and lusty, her skin flushed and hot under the wolf pelts. Her lips looked full and red, and her teeth white and sharp in the polished metal of her mirror. Even the memory of her marriage night with her vile husband didn't seem so torturous when she ceased thinking and only felt the natural appeal of her loins. _He thinks of me as a prey, but I'm not, I'm a fierce beast like him._

 _I'm not a wolf, I'm a woman._  
Her sorry maid was opening the shutters, and Sansa felt her throat tighten up in fear again.  
She stayed at her sewing all day long except for a quick meal, but she couldn't eat much. 

At the end of the seventh day, Ramsay Bolton bulled into the bedchamber, still garbed in his hideous armor, his dagger and sword dripping with blood. His cruel face was unmarked, despite days of battle. He called for his lady wife.


	5. Ramsay

He scattered the pieces of his Bolton armor, carved in the semblance of a flayed man, all over the chamber, while Reek helped his ladywife disrobe. She appeared in all her noble beauty. The pale skin of her round breasts bore the red marks of his painful love. After having bathed in his foes blood for days, he lusted all the more for her. 

While drinking a cup of a rich arbor wine he looked at her leisurely. He noted her supple hips, her billowing gait, the way her white hand went by her auburn hair, letting the fiery locks flow like red fur. He found her changed.

_So you're no more the shy maiden you were on our wedding night, seems like you only needed to be taught how to be a woman and satisfy all your husband's desires._

Maybe she will put a little more fight. Ramsay liked that, as long as he ended the winner.

She didn't try to hide under the furs like the first night, instead she crawled wantonly upon him, in a wild move. She writhed against him, kissed him and nibbled at his lips. Ramsay rested on the pillows, battle worn, and closed his eyes. She whispered in his ear, her wolf bride, with promises that this night will be the very night she will give him a strong Bolton son, making him a lord at last. 

He felt her fur wet and slick between her legs, and tried to slide his hard cock inside, but she groaned for him to wait, just a little. He opened his eyes. Hers were yellow in the candle light. He knew that gaze. The boldest bitches tried this, tried to lie their way into being spared by him, to mimic pleasure and hide their fear while he was tearing them apart. These were the same ones that were hard to catch, so he spared them being flayed alive, and cut their throats before as a mercy. 

Her tongue went down, leaving a slaver track on his breast. Her teeth grazed a nipple and seized, licking, pulling softly. He thought of her lips around his cock and seized her shiny hair. 

And yelled. 

The wolf girl stared with her yellow eyes, her white teeth smeared with red blood. He hit her, but the thought of marking her face restrained his hand, so it ended in a slap on her hot, flushed cheek. She bent down and kissed him deeply, making him taste his own blood.

« Please Ramsay, wait, wait for me, I want to take my pleasure with you. » She moaned and growled while straddling him and mounting his cock, moving slowly up and down. She arched and her fiery hair brushed his thighs. He lay on the pillows, hot from the wine and weary from the battle. Memories of his hunts streamed behind his eyelids in a scarlet scenery.

Wolves and flayers, flayers and wargs, it had been the same for ages, hunters and preys, preys and hunters running for the kill, running for their lives in the icy woods of the north. Now the naked prey was scurrying through the snow drifts, on all four like a beastling, chilling and panting, his breath rasping in his throat. He fell down a slope, lost his knife and the wolves were on him. Monstrous beasts, as big as horses, and as they slashed across his flesh their snouts became faces, now men, now wolves, now women clad in wolf pelts, howling, howling.

She was howling in a wild frenzy when Ramsay released his seed inside her. Her eyes were white, her face twisted in hunger and lust.

He stayed under the furs, spent and content, looking at her noble wife while she beckoned to her maid. Reek obeyed mindlessly, like mesmerized by her, when she ordered him to prepare a hot bath. He noticed her thighs were slick with blood.

Her eyes were blue and her skin were white and soft. She was what Ramsay needed, a lady in the hall, a wolf in the sheets. He tried to forget his strange dream.

« My lord husband, remember your father is awaiting for you with his bannermen, for dinner and council.  He will surely send you out again to fight on the morrow, while he stays behind the walls with his wife and his future heir.» Sansa's voice was soft and firm now, as you would expect from the lady of the castle. 

As she left the bedchamber with his traitorous pet in tow, Ramsay swept his long black hair away from his moist brow. 

His hand came back drenched in blood. Suddlenly pain replaced pleasure.

He grasped his wife's polished metal mirror.

A bloody gash cut across his face from his left ear to the other side of his chin. Not just a loving scratch, a deep cut, dripping with blood.


	6. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there was a girl  
> and there was a beast  
> you think you know the story  
> (The Company of wolves)

A gibbous moon glanced between two clouds. The big grey wolf mounted one of the smaller females and bit softly at her neck. The she-wolf arched under him and growled in a low voice as they were coupling. Sansa felt the little wolf fur bristling, caught between her own teeth. Her loins were on fire. She was the great beast, the head of the pack, taking her due, eating first and leading them through the woods. 

_I'm not a wolf, I'm a woman_ , she tried to remember. She felt at ease in her wolf pelt, too much at ease maybe, like when her gentle Lady was at her side. But she was not the soft girl of the past, no more than the big grey wolf was Lady. It was a huge beast, fierce and battle hardened, a man-killer swift as the wind. It was easy to run with him, it felt like he was calling for her to join him. _He had a name_ , she thought oddly. 

_Wolves don't use names, only men need names_. She opened her eyes in the bedchamber. She felt well rested, even if she had run wild under the moon the whole night. Her fur felt moist between her legs. She stretched voluptuously across the bed. _Grey Wind, his name was Grey Wind, Robb had named him. A direwolf_. But Robb was dead, and it was only a dream, as bracing as it was.

Reek was there, her sorry maid, looking at her like a beaten dog, waiting for her orders. 

« Reek, is it true that they desecrated the body of my brother, like Ramsay told me ? »  
He jumped and began to cry silently as if she was going to beat him too. 

« Don't cry, I know you've been punished harshly for your misdeeds, just answer me truly and I won't hurt you.  
\- It... it's just a tale the Freys spread in the castle, m'lady. They pay no mind to Reek, so I heard them admit that it was a lie, just a lie.»

*****

« Bring me my gift from Lady Bolton. »

Reek presented her a small cushion, the same size as the one she had gifted Lady Walda, but bright pink in color. The young spouse had done her best to make the drops of blood look like nice little jewels.

« Have mercy, Lady Sansa, don't ask me anything else, I had to lie and tell the boys that Lord Bolton had forbidden to ruin lady Walda's gifts. They wanted to open it with their knives. » At that word he began to shudder violently, wriggling his mangled hands.

« Lady Walda has promised me something else. Something from maester Wolkan cupboard. You will have to go back again. »

« He will flay my hands and feet if he finds about that, I can't, I can't...  
-You killed my brothers » she said cooly, trying to hide her feelings, like Littlefinger would do.  
All the while she was pulling on the thread to open the cushion. Hidden inside was a fistful of wizened flowers. She ordered Reek to have them soak in water and hide that. Lady Walda was all the more happy to bring her moon tea, instead of Sansa birthing Ramsay's son to usurp hers.

After that she relaxed in a hot bath while her strange maid washed her gently. She was no more afraid nor disgusted by the sorry creature. She pitied Reek.

« Theon. »  
He shook his head like a madman.  
She put a soft hand on his cheek and forced him to look at her like she had seen Ramsay do.  
« Always tell me the truth and I won't tell him anything, I promise. Lie to me and I will have you punished. »  
He nodded.

« M'lady, the dogs... When he told you... » She could only see one eye behind the white, dirty hair. « All his dogs are bitches... They can't... They can't... He only wanted to scare you, to hurt you. »

She took one of his maimed hands in hers.

« Do you remember when Arya and Bran played with me in the summer snows ? »  
He hung his head low and stayed mute, trembling.   
« Even then, the snow drifts were so high they could jump into it from the outer wall. They were never hurt. I didn't join them, as I didn't want to spoil my gowns. But I'm sure I can now. The drifts must be higher still with that storm. »  
He went to his knees and began to cry loudly.  
« Do you remember Bran, Theon ? And Rickon, a lovely babe. You killed them. I have not an ounce of pity for your sorry skin. You will jump with me and flee the castle with me. If you don't, I'll leave you to Lord Ramsay. I'm sure he will find something left that he can cut. Look me in the eyes, Theon. »  
He couldn't.  
« M'lady I... I didn't kill your brothers, they escaped us. It was only the miller's sons.  I don't know were your brothers are now.»  
She looked him in the eyes, and saw the truth. Her brothers were alive, and she will have to find them.  
« The miller's sons ? » She remembered Robb laughing about Theon's frequent visits to the miller's wife, when he thought his sisters were not in hearing distance. So Theon was really accursed in the eyes of gods and men. _A murderer, and know a kinslayer_. 

She took his chin in her hand and forced his head up.  
« Theon.  
-Please, please, I don't want to be _him_. Lord Ramsay was merciful, he allowed me to forget, don't, don't... »  
He wept, still holding her hand in his mangled one.  
« Reek. »  
That seemed to calm him a little.  
« Lord Ramsay will go out tomorrow to meet Stannis on the field. His vile boys will ride with him. His father will have to go too if he wants the northmen to keep following his lead. » She smiled thinly. « They won't return for several days if they return at all. The day after, we will jump and reach for the woods.  
-M'lady, we will die from cold and hunger, or he will hunt us with his bitches, he will find us, he will...  
-You lost any right to choose as a man, Reek. A dog just obeys. »  
She scratched him softly behind the ears till he ceased crying.

When the morning came, the castle was in shambles from more murders and bad news from Stannis marching with his army. Nobody would mind them.  


*****

She was alone in the room, lost in her thoughts, when the door opened violently and banged on the wall, giving way to the Bastard, already garbed in his red armor. He was holding a thick chain in his gauntlet.

He strode to her and seized her hands roughly.

« Pray for the return of your loving husband, my lady wolf. If I die in battle my boy Luton is ordered to kill you.  Everybody will think you hanged yourself.»

He kissed her and smiled, a ghastly smile across his slashed face. Then he chained her to the wall and barred the door behind him.


	7. Sansa

The door opened slowly and a shadow crept inside the chamber. Sansa watched it coming to her with horror, chained and helpless. She felt cornered like a wild animal. She didn't want to be a prey again, to feel the snare around her neck. She bared her teeth in the dark.

« M'lady, Luton is sleeping. I put Lady Walda's dreamwine in his wine as you asked. » Reek opened the shackles.

Bundled in hooded cloaks, they crossed the desert yard amongst high snow drifts. The cold was sizzling. They climbed the stairs to the outer wall.

The guards were used to see Reek walk at night like a ghost. Sometimes their sergeant would ask him to bring a whore to his turret farther along the wall. They payed no mind to the wretch save for a few slurs, and stayed huddled round a brasier warming their hands. 

As soon as they were out of sight, Sansa took his hand and led him along the wall to the place were she knew the snows were the highest and they jumped.

*****

They headed north for hours and forded the Weeping Water, taking care of not wetting their feet. The woods were dark and icy cold despite the fugitives being bundled in several layers of furs. They tread slowly, the snow was falling on and on, up to their knees, covering their tracks forthwith. 

Sansa knew they couldn't go on like this for a long time. Reek was limping due to his missing toes and was very feeble and famished. She tried to go inside her head again to call for the direwolf, to no avail. Maybe she had to be asleep to get in touch with him, maybe it was just a dream ? 

In the dark she could scarce see the game trail they were following. She stopped and closed her eyes. And the woods came alive to her. She could hear every branch rustle in the wind, each snowflake fall to the ground, each little beast scurry in the snow. And she could smell them, she could smell the blood not too far. She pulled on Reek's hand and forced him to walk on.

Flesh and blood were waiting for them amidst the snow, a great elk, untouched, a gift from the wolves. She led them to the corpse. It lay on the ground, still warm, its red blood smoking in the cold. Sansa drank the warm blood running from its throat, while Reek tore out some hot meat and sucked up grease and blood through his broken teeth. They were no more than beasts, as men couldn't survive in the cruel winter.

Then they lay, the she-wolf and the beaten dog, holding each other tightly, inside the great elk hide, amongst the torn hot flesh, and they fell asleep at last.

Now she was lurking with Grey Wind in the deep dark woods, fierce and fearless. And suddenly, she felt the beast was not alone. It had a pack. Not the little wolves that were running by his side, other great wolves, _direwolves._

She could feel their presence, bone deep, as if they were part of her, even if they were far away. Her little sister had the biggest pack, hundreds of little wolves running with her in the green woods of the south, killing beasts and men alike. Her three brothers were hunting in the cold north, over the great ice cliff. A grey one living amongst the tree roots, a white one with red eyes, and even a black wild one. And they could sense her too, they reached to her for the first time, and they sat on their haunches and howled together as a pack.

She howled with them.

Then she sensed something else. It was faint like a ghost, but it was alive by her side. _Someone else_ was running with Grey Wind.

She woke up under the elk's hide, under a pile of snow. She was alone. Reek was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Reek, you don't get to draw Sansa behind you like a dead weight and lead the escape, she's no Jeyne Pool, for f*k's sake! She's got the wolf blood. You just follow and obey, you're Reek and you'll always be Reek. Groan.  
> Sorry.


	8. Reek

Reek meandered into the woods. He tried to find some dry wood under the pines, to use as kindling. They had to light a fire to keep them warm, to cook the rest of the meat and take it with them. Even as he was thinking that, he knew it was a lie. They had nowhere to go, and they were going to die anyway, from cold, hunger, or some wolves.

Maybe it was for the best. They were still not so far from the castle, and death was way better than being caught by Lord Ramsay.

He sat in the snow, holding the wood in his lap. _Lord Ramsay won't kill his Stark wife, he needs her to breed a son. I could go back and surrender, ask for help. Maybe she'd prefer to die in the snow though. As for Reek..._

For Reek it will be the worst punishment he had ever suffered. He felt his fingers twitch inside his leather gloves. The glimmer in Lord Ramsay's eyes as he slid the knife slowly under the skin, the line of blood. It was still bearable when you didn't know the end game. But Reek knew. Flesh tearing up slow to bare sinew, gristle and bone. Tearing up to reveal what would never have to be known. You could hold no secrets under the flaying knife. Maybe if the pain had ceased immediately your mind would not crack open, maybe if you passed out... But they never let you, they woke you up again and again with a splash of cold water. And Lord Ramsay loved to let you beg for days with your flesh exposed, beg and beg... 

Reek closed his eyes and put his hands on his ears, his mouth open wide in a silent scream, and shook his head madly to chase the vision. After the flayed finger was cut it left a dull pulse in his bandaged hands, and that felt so good, that felt like heavens. « My sweet Reek. » Ramsay would whisper, and he would hold him close, kiss him, he...

The snow crust crackled under a light pace.

« Lady Sansa ? »

He raised his head and glimpsed at the biggest wolf he has ever seen. He shook his head, the beast still stood there. Too late to reach for a tree, Reek clenched a maimed hand round a branch. 

The wolf padded slowly and sat on his haunches, so close he could look into its yellow eyes. Snow had caught in its coarse fur and formed like an ice crown upon its head. His pelt was torn up in many places, and an iron stalk, inches long, poked out near its backbone.

The vision wouldn't go out. Reek dropped the branch.

The wolf growled in a foreboding way.

Reek sensed something reach into his shattered mind, into that open place that held no secrets.  
It thrust deeply, to a wild, primal part in himself, beyond Reek and beyond Theon, to another great beast inside him that had been cut and maimed, but was still stirring. A creature that dwelled deep underneath the sea, and would never die. 

Then the beast withdrew and Reek felt another presence, a tenuous presence, a _human_ one. It was what had led the direwolf up north despite all its wounds, back to Winterfell.

The wolf got closer and smelled him, it's maw open on ranges of sharp yellow teeth. Saliva dripped from its lolling tongue, and it stank of raw meat and blood.

The beast wailed. A sullen, mournful plaint.

_Do you come to take me with you, to end my misery... Robb... Is that you ?_

There was no need for words, for pleading or regrets. Theon lay down on his back on the icy ground. 

He bared his throat.


	9. Sansa

Sansa put a gloved hand in the thick grey fur. She didn't move for a long time, then she turned around and walked away. The direwolf followed her, padding silently by her side.

Reek lay still in the snow.

*****

She sat near Grey Wind and began to loosen the broken quarrel from the wolf's back. The direwolf wailed softly and put its snout on her lap. Black blood ran from the old wound and froze in the icy cold.

Sansa huddled against the big wolf, her face buried in the coarse grey fur.

A shadow sneaked by them silently.

Reek kept his head low and tried to stay as far as possible from the beast. He set about to light a fire.

Soon the meat was cooking and crackling above the fire, making their mouths water.

Sansa and the beast tore off the meat avidly till their stomach was full. Then they let the gaunt creature suckle at a few morsels with his broken teeth. The rest was left to wait for the little wolves.

Sansa and Reek lay near the fire, huddled together under their furs. Grey Wind stole silently inside the woods. He had to go alone for a last hunt.

Later Sansa woke up and saw four yellow eyes in the dark, the little she-wolves. She heard them shred what remained of the elk. She was not afraid, the little beasts knew her scent, they belonged to the pack.

Early in the morn Sansa plunged into another wolf dream.

She was running with Grey Wind again, along with Robb, but her brother's presence was a wan ghost of his vibrant past self. His spirit was dying, and his last forces were set on one aim only.

The direwolf was attracted to the smell of smoke and blood, and soon Sansa heard the din of battle nearby. They jumped into a fury of men cutting left and right with swords, white eyed destriers rearing and striking with their hooves, men-at-arms shouting and swearing, arrows hissing and killing friends and foes alike. The beast carved itself a bloody trail amongst the Frey and Bolton lines, tearing up throats and ripping up flesh, so swift they couldn't even see it before they died screaming.

Suddenly the ranks disbanded and everybody was fleeing for his life in the snow, in a wild panic. The direwolf leaped on a horse's rump. His teeth snapped on a pink cloak and brought down the rider violently. He rolled onto the ground, lost his helmet and was trying to get up again but the beast was upon him.

The man had a rather smooth and untouched face for a hardened battle commander, and pale grey eyes that stayed strangely blank in the face of danger. Till they met the beast's eyes, no, the eyes of a man he had held in a death embrace years ago. Finally Roose Bolton's dead eyes lit up with a terrible fear, just before the wolf tore up his throat and feasted on his blood.

Sansa's mouth was full of blood and gore. She called for Robb but there was no answer. Robb was gone. She was alone with the wolf. The battlefield was scattered with corpses and wounded men, some crawling, some dying and calling desperately. _I'm not a wolf, I'm a woman_. Sansa's dream of chivalry and noble deeds had been shattered long ago, but she tried to find a little bit of the Mother's mercy for these men inside her heart. _I must not stay a beast for too long, or I will never come back _.__

____

__

She woke up suddenly in the icy morn, feeling cold and weary. The fire had gone out. Reek was shaking her and his face was mad with fear. The direwolf was nowhere in sight.

She heard dogs barking in the distance.  
They got up and began to run to the woods.


	10. Reek

From their hiding place in the woods they could see far across the Weeping Water. The dogs reached over the crest first, black spots running and rolling down the snowy slope. Their baying echoed in the crisp white morning. Blood appeared at the top, a black silhouette. His rider reined him in sharply and the fugitives felt chilled to the bones, as if Ramsay's cold eyes could spy them from afar, even underneath the trees.

The barking increased, and they saw Ramsay try to push the stallion in the icy waters just across the river. But as hard as he was whipping him, the horse reared and refused to engage.

Two grey spots appeared in the snow. The little wolves.

Ramsay yelled at the bitches, and the wolf-killers rushed forward. The two little grey beasts where too famished to resist the pack of dogs and Sansa and Reek had to look while they surrounded them and ripped them to shreds.

Sansa closed her eyes and tried to call for the direwolf.  
Reek pulled on her sleeve.  
« I... I feel nothing, she said. It's like... Since Robb is dead, Grey Wind's gone wild, he's estranged from me. »

The madness in Reek's eyes had let place to a dire sadness.

« He can't cross where he is, he needs to go to the ford. I'll draw him there. The bitches will follow my tracks. They know my scent », he said gloomily. « You stayed Grey Wind when he wanted to kill Theon, and you were awake then. Go deep into the woods, Lady Sansa, and call for your wolf again. It'll give you more time »

*****

When Reek reached the ford, he kept on limping in the snow along the river as to draw the dogs away from her. 

He saw them jumping across the shallow waters, barking on and on. Ramsay followed on Blood.

« Stay! Down! » 

Ramsay's voice calling to his bitches and the crack of his whip chilled Reek to the bones.

« Reek! Heel! »

Reek stopped in his tracks, turned around and knelt mindlessly. 

He met the dogs unblinking yellow eyes. Their red maws opened a few inches off his face and they growled in a low, famished tone. He had seen them maul a girl before Lord Ramsay raped her and skinned her alive. He had seen them feed on her torn meat. He looked up and searched for his master's eyes.

« Crawl to me, bitch! » 

Reek began to grovel in the snow, very slowly. Ramsay's bitches stepped aside.

« That's a good dog. Now where's my lady wife, Reek ? Help me find her and I promise I won't cut your hands and feet. I'll just flay a finger and a toe. And if you're quick to obey, I'll be quick to cut them too. Crawl to me, bitch. Bring me back my she-wolf. » 

He laughed.

« These woods are so cold. I bet she's already frozen. Too bad, I will have to cut one of her little feet. That will be for the best though, she won't try to runaway again. »

Ramsay's words ceased to make sense for Reek. Like a beaten dog, he was enthralled by his warm, low, deceitful tone. It promised a place in the kennels, a bed of straw on the icy ground, maybe some meat if he could snatch it from another bitch. He longed to cuddle up between their warm furry bodies and to regain his place as the runt of the pack. 

His head leaned on one of Ramsay's boots. Blood snorted and tried to kick him. Ramsay seized him roughly by the hair and almost lifted him in the air. He yelped.

A mass of hard muscle leaped in the air and Reek was thrown roughly to the ground as Helicent snapped at Ramsay's leg. Ramsay screamed and Blood turned around to kick the dog. Reek scurried away in the snow. Another dog bounded and tried to catch Helicent's neck, but she spun and bit and tore up it's throat in a splash of blood.

« Down! Down! »

Ramsay yelled in a raging, heinous tone. The other dogs sneaked to him, growling. Kyra pushed Reek softly to the ground and placed herself between him and the fray.

Ramsay tried to hack the bitches with his sword, but they whirled in a hustle of fur and teeth. The stallion reared and almost unseated him when a dog bit at his shank. He reined the horse in brutally and they wrenched away from the dogs, covered with foam and blood. 

Ramsay reached for his bow.


	11. Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warg Sansa.
> 
> No smut, just blood and gore.

Reek was just a black shape staggering in the white along the river, soon to disappear from her sight. Snow began to fall in big flakes.  
Sansa closed her eyes again.

All of a sudden she could see the scene clearly, even if it was from afar. She was _on the other side of the water, high upon the crest_. All her senses were on alert, the dogs bark seemed loud and clear, and she could understand their song of fury and blood as they rushed across the river. She knew their scent. To her, dogs had the scent of preys. She was seeing them from Grey Wind's yellow eyes, while she was still hiding in the woods.

She was running with Grey Wind. She could feel its flanks soiled from the blood of the battle, men's blood and its own. The great beast was on a rampage for the dogs that had killed its pack, oblivious of the danger that could come from Ramsay's arrows. She tried desperately to control him, but she felt like she was losing her in the wildness of the beast. 

She howled.

Grey Wind bounded across the ford.  
Ramsay reined Blood in, faced the direwolf and let an arrow fly, but Blood reared and he missed his mark. The beast leaped quick as the wind, before the stallion could hit with his hooves, and tore at one leg. The horse toppled violently with his rider and its neck broke under the huge beast weight. Ramsay began to crawl away, his knife in hand.

The direwolf sat in the snow and stayed still. When Ramsay tried to get up, he growled.

Sansa opened her eyes. She got up and began to walk down to the ford.

*****

Sansa put a gloved hand on Grey Wind's head and scratched at the coarse fur. The wolf pricked his ears.  
No barking could be heard, and no sign of Reek. 

Ramsay was on his knees in the snow, a long black strand of hair falling across his scarred, cruel face.

« So it is true what they say, Lady Sansa, you're a warg, a skinchanger. »

He laughed and tried to get up again. The wolf growled.

« If you kill me, you will die frozen, alone in the woods. Unless my men find you and throw you in the dungeons. Boltons and Starks have been long time enemies it's true, but now that I beat Stannis, together we could rule the north. Even the Riverlands and the Vale. We could carve a kingdom for us, my lady. »

Sansa tapped some snow off her furs and answered in a mild tone.

« To the Starks, Boltons are _prey_ , they've always been. And you're not even one. You're a Snow. A bastard. »

Ramsay's face twisted in a hateful grin. He leaped at the wolf and struck quickly with his knife. Grey Wind was way faster and his jaws snapped at his wrist. Blood welled and the knife fell to the ground. Sansa took it delicately and tossed it in the icy waters.

« You're a liar. You lost the battle and many of your men. And your father is dead. Stark bannermen hold Winterfell now, under the direwolf banner. »

She let Grey Wind guard her prisoner and walked on along the river to find Reek, dead or alive. She didn't fear Ramsay's bitches, the giant wolf scent seemed to have make them runaway.

She heard a grunt and one of the dogs sneaked from behind a tree. A lean beast, but still a muscled, menacing mass of fur. Her snout was smeared with blood, her eyes unblinking.

« Helicent! Down. »

The voice was feeble and wailing, but the bitch lay down al the same. Sansa walked on.

She passed the corpse of a dead bitch. 

Then across the trail lay a mat of brown fur studded with yellow eyes. A strange creature, bundled in fur too, sat in the middle and looked at her with sunken blue eyes. One of the dogs got up, its tail up in the air, but Reek ordered it down with a soft voice.

« Fear not, m'lady, I ate and slept with them in the kennels, I'm part of the pack now. »

_You need a pack to survive winter._

« Come with me, Reek. »

The dogs stayed there, away from the direwolf.

*****

  
« My treacherous bitch. »

Ramsay's eyes, two lifeless chunks of grey ice, searched for Reek's eyes. Blood had already frozen on his wrist and leg and his face was white and blotchy except for the nasty cut.

Reek limped two steps forward.

« Good. You don't want to be burned at the stake by Stannis, don't you ? You don't want to be brought before the northmen after what you did to Ned Stark's children. »

Reek took another step, knelt and lowered his head, hiding his eyes behind his dirty white hair. 

« I... I wouldn't know, m'lord. I was born in the dungeons, I always obeyed and did what you asked of me, he said in a dim-witted voice. I... I only want to die now. »

He cocked his head and glanced at Sansa from behind his hair. She nodded.

Ramsay's face convulsed and his voice went from beguiling to full of spite and hatred.

« He's mine, cunt! And will always be.  
Now call for your pack, Reek, order them to kill the monster. » 

Grey Wind's fur bristled, he snarled and prepared to leap.  
Sansa's face hardened and her hand lowered onto the coarse fur.

She composed herself and spoke with a soft, ladylike voice.

« Theon didn't kill my brothers, he said so to me. And Stannis is dying.  
I don't want to hear no more lies, Snow.  
Now run! »

*****

 

Ramsay was frothing at the mouth and spit flew from the corner of his mouth.  
« I will never give you that, cunt! You won't see me run. Reek, come to your master. You want to die, come die with me. » His voice changed to a sweet, poisonous tone.

Reek glanced at Sansa. She stroked his cheek softly with a gloved hand. He bowed his head and hid behind his hair.  
Ramsay seized a fistful of hard snow and threw it rabidly at them.  
Grey Wind sneaked forward.

Sansa sat in the snow and smoothed her furs neatly about her.

« I said run, _bastard!_  »

She closed her eyes.

The direwolf leaped.

Ramsay tried to get up and flee but the beast was on him. He bit at his ankle and tore boot and flesh. Ramsay screamed and tried to crawl away.  
Sansa's mouth was full of blood.

The direwolf' snapped at the other boot and pulled it off. It walked onto Ramsay's back and seized him at the collar and wrenched it off. The leather jerkin tore in two easily. Ramsay tried to turn away but the wolf was too heavy and he could only hardly breath. The beast bit at his pink tunic and snagged it. It caught his belt, gnawed at it, and pulled Ramsay's breeches down. 

Ramsay sneaked away in the snow, spitting heinous and vile words, but to the wolf man talk meant nothing.  
It pawed silently to his prey, who was leaving a bloody trail with all three reopened wounds. It began to nibble at his smallclothes and took them out delicately. The prey was only covered with his thin and prickly skin now. It smelled of fear.

It rolled away and jumped at the wolf , trying to be killed quickly. The beast just growled and held it's neck between its jaws without biting.

 _Won't you give me good game, my lord husband ?_

Grey Wind let it go and Ramsay rushed on all four like an animal. Sansa felt a warmth spread inside her belly. 

All these years she had been restricted, tightly laced in her lady's raiments. She had to guard her face, while snakes around her plotted to sell her to the highest bidder. She had been told to hold onto the treasure hidden between her maiden's legs. Only to have it wrenched away by a monster in a gush of blood.

Now she knew it didn't have any value. All that mattered was the hunt. The sound of her prey crushing fresh snow under its lumpish paws, the clear vision of it through her yellow eyes as it tried so slowly to escape and reach for the trees, and the scent, the scent that came from its naked hide. It reeked of fear. 

She had mated with another wolf in the dark woods, her loins on fire. She had fed upon warm, bloody flesh and cold dead flesh alike. Men's flesh. She had no fear left inside her. 

The wolf loped fast and caught up his prey. It only wanted to rip its throat and feed on its flesh, but Sansa reined it in and her jaws only snapped on its calf and bit and tore a piece of flesh off. The naked beastling squealed and squirmed, it tried to turn around and emitted an odd sound. A man sound, but she couldn't make sense of it. 

She growled and pawed slowly to it as it crawled away.

She remembered a sound. _Ramsay_. That sound only made her want to hurt the thing harder.

The naked, frozen stiff prey reached for a tree and tried very slowly to climb it up. She leaped and caught his long black hair between her jaws and dragged it down onto the snow. It struggled feebly, and again those strange man sounds, then it turned into a continuous wail. That she could understand. The smell of fear was overwhelming

It was sprawled on its back, its skin bluish from the cold. Its parted legs revealed its naked belly. A thin line of fur went down from its navel to a shriveled, pale, ludicrous bit of flesh. That made her laugh and want to rip it off. _But why would a wolf laugh ?_

It tried to put its naked hand into her maw to push her away, so she wrenched its arm off in a squirt of blood. It shrieked, an inhuman, long beastly scream that ended in a gurgle when she opened it from throat to crotch, mauling skin and flesh in a frenzy. She shook it between her jaws and thrust her snout inside it and drank its hot thick blood. She padded unto it and ripped his face off. The thing stirred until its head almost parted from the body. She hooooowled. Hunger took over.

_Sansa, Lady Sansa!_

_I'm not a wolf, I'm a woman._

« Please, Lady Sansa. » 

Her mouth tasted of flesh and blood. She felt a hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes.  
The bitches were sitting in the snow behind Reek, watching over him.  
When the giant direwolf padded back, they surrounded Reek and began to growl.

« Please, m'lady, no, they're good dogs, it's not their fault if they were named like dead girls. »  
Reek's voice trembled and tears welled up in his eyes, turning fast into ice.  
Grey Wind approached, its snout smeared with Ramsay's blood. Sansa put a hand on its neck.  
One of the dogs leaped.  
« No! Beth!  No!»  
The direwolf grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and shook violently. There was a loud crack and the dog was cast yards away in the snow, dead. The rest of the bitches turned with their tails between their legs and ran away, but one.  
« Kyra, down! » Reek kicked it till she yelped and fled too.

« Theon. »  
No answer.  
« You're not a dog, you're a man. »  
He stood still with his head hung low.  
« Follow me. » Sansa's voice was soft but firm.

« He's dead. Come see it. » 

They followed the bloody trail to what was left of the Bastard of Bolton. Length of entrails littered the snow all around. 

The hand he had raised to protect him had been stripped to the bone. The wolf seemed to have especially lashed out between his legs and had left nothing there but a bloody pulp.

Sansa stopped and put a hand on her mouth for fear of heaving. She pushed Reek forward.

He went on like a sleepwalker and knelt down in the bloody snow. One grey eye dangled from the severed head, the other eye was open still. He tried to shut it clumsily with a gloved hand, but the empty fingers slipped. The eye opened again and stared at Reek, as dull and dead as ever.

« Theon. Time to go now. I want to be home before nightfall. »

« Home ? »

He raised his face, a mask of frozen snot and tears.

« To be tried and executed ? He already took care of that.

\- To face the consequences of your acts.

\- I'm tired. I'm almost dead, and what is still alive hurts like hell. Please I want to put it to rest. Next to him is a good place to lie down. He took most of me with him anyway.  Grey Wind will take you safely to Winterfell.»

He lay quietly in the snow and turned his back on her.

« Get up, Theon. »

_I can't have Grey Wind drag him all the way to Winterfell._

Sansa walked away till she was out of sight, the direwolf padding behind her.

*****

  
She sat and closed her eyes again.

When she ran with Grey Wind it was like they belonged together, they united their forces as part of a pack. 

This was different. Reek's mind had been thoroughly broken by Ramsay, and that made it easy. It felt like she was putting on well worn boots, boots that had been used by someone else. 

Reek quickly withdrew in a little corner of his mind and curled up like a beaten dog. She took control of his sore, clumsy body and made him limp away from the death scene.

Reek was not alone in there. Along the way someone tried desperately to reclaim the body, causing Reek to lurch, fall on a rock and open one of his knees. She had to chase Theon inside his own mind till he cringed in fear and hid behind Reek. And there was something else lurking in the dark in the confines of Theon's mind, something powerful and frightening that made Sansa happy to be so far from the sea.

 

****

She opened her eyes. Theon stood in front of her. She had never seen such terror in someone's eyes.

« He... he made me into something less than human, lower than a dog, something loath and despicable... he carved some of my body parts, yes... but I always retained a grip on my mind... I always remembered I was _one_ , be it Reek or Theon, he let me keep that at least... This... This is...even Ramsay wouldn't be so cruel. » 

He fell down on his knees.

Sansa helped him up and put her hands on his shoulders.

« Theon... I will never make you suffer just for revenge or pleasure, but you must understand... You will go back to Winterfell with me and face whatever fate I decide for you. There's no other way. »

He nodded. She hugged him and let him put his head on her shoulder.

_I cannot pray to the Maiden anymore, and I doubt I will ever pray to the Mother either, but I want to keep some of their mercy in me. I don't want to become only a beast, I want to be Sansa too. Even if I am not sure who Sansa is._

They began their walk back to Winterfell, the wolf padding behind them.


	12. Sansa

They reached Winterfell just before nightfall. Some scouts had stopped them on their way, hard men from the mountain clans, always loyal to the Starks. They had given Sansa one of their little shaggy horses to ride, and they had put Theon back in chains. 

Despite snow, a great pyre was aflamme in front of the castle, and she heard what was left of Stannis men pray to their red god while the king's body was burned.

Greywind crossed the drawbridge first, then the riders did. The Northmen, lords bannermen and men-at-arms alike, swarmed the yard among the snow drifts, under the Stark banners.

Silence welcomed the giant wolf. Sansa pulled back her hood. Her face felt cold like steel from the bitter wind of winter . Little ice crystals crackled on her skin when her first words came out hard and fast.

« Ramsay Bolton is dead. »

There was some shouting of « Stark! » and « Winterfell! ». 

Then they recognized Theon, and insults gushed. « Turncloak! Murderer! Ironborn scum! » Some hurled hard snow and stones at him, others draw their swords and offered to take his head here and now. The same men that had witnessed her wedding to Ramsay Bolton.

Greywind growled. Sansa raised her hand.

« If we must sort the traitors from those who just feared for their families, or waited to overthrow the Boltons... many will join their men and the Freys in the dungeons. »  
Silence spread across the yard.

« My brothers are alive. That was the miller's boys Theon ordered Ramsay to kill in their stead.  Theon! Tell my men who you ordered to kill.  
\- I didn't know...  
\- Who ?  
\- I didn't know I had a son... The miller's wife said so when she pleaded for her life. The little one was from me.  
\- Louder!  
\- My son. I killed my son. » 

An appalled whisper spread across the yard.

« Now take off your furs, Theon. »

He obeyed mindlessly.

« Go on, take off your clothes. »

He shook his head. 

Sansa said something in his ear, and he began to shed his rags.

When he was utterly naked in front of all, the crowd stayed silent for a heartbeat, then it burst in a thundering laughter. Some men kept their eyes closed though, Sansa noticed.

Theon stood shivering while torchlights shimmered upon Ramsay Bolton's carvings, then suddenly he fell to the ground.

A soldier strode to pick him up and wrapped him up in his cloak. Not a soldier, a woman in chainmail, thought Sansa astonished.

*****

Sansa relaxed in a hot bath while a girl washed her skin and hair clumsily. She had a rosy face and matted light brown hair. It was obvious she had never served in a castle. Sansa tried to turn a blind eye to what the wench truly was. At least she knew what can befell to a woman's body in times of war, and she didn't balk at her awful marks.

« How are you called ?  
\- Hazel, m'lady. »

She didn't have the rough accents of the north, and the soft texture of her voice reminded Sansa of her own mother's voice.  
« Are you from the Riverlands ?   
-Yes, m'lady. My parent's crops were burned by rogues, Wolves or Lions I don't know. So I had to follow the soldiers unless I'd die from hunger. Not all o'them are brutes m'lady, some were just farmers like us before the war.  And when they bleed and die they cry like little boys too.»

Sansa leaned back and let herself go. If the wench's hands were calloused, their moves were very soft and she deftly avoided her many bruises. When she circled lightly on her breasts and belly, Sansa felt warmth spreading around across her skin. 

It was different from the wild and crude urges she had felt when she was a wolf, or the cruel streak that had led her to possess her vile husband. She wanted it to last for a long time, just like that, with no other aim but sweet pleasure, and no other demand from her body. She closed her eyes and sighed. For the first time in years she allowed herself to cry when not alone. The girl understood and let her put her head on her shoulder and cry her heart out.

_I will never bear children. I will never wed again, and my maids will be the only ones to touch me from now on._

« I will need a maid. Do you want to be my maid, Hazel ?  
\- It'll be a great honour, m'lady. If your wolf is not keen to eat me. » The girl smiled and pointed at the beast that lay quietly on the floor, its yellow eyes half closed.  
« So help me don my gown, my bannermen are awaiting the Lady of Winterfell. »

*****

Sansa sat in the high chair that had been her father's seat, she wore her grey and white gown with the direwolf sewn upon her heart. Grey Wind lay at her feet, still as an iron statue.

All Stark lord bannermen sat below, awaiting nervously.

« Tomorrow I will send a party to my half-brother Jon on the wall. My brothers are up north, I sensed them when Grey Wind called to his wolf brothers. Ghost will help find them, they are under the protection of their direwolves. I will be the Lady of Winterfell till Bran or Rickon sit in my father's chair. My little sister is very far from her wolf., but she is alive and well, and she is coming back to Winterfell. » Sansa paused. « She's fierce. »

« Before that, at the hour of the wolf, I want all men that bear the name of Frey be brought to the yard and beheaded. I cannot swing the sword myself, but I will attend till the last one is dead.  Their men-at-arms will be spared if they swear fealty»

 « Bring on Lady Bolton. »

The young widow walked ponderously to the dai, her gown a blotch of pink amongst the overwhelming Stark colours. She was heavy with child now, and her eyes were full of fear.

« My father would never have allowed the death of a child, not even to save his own life. You will be kept in a tower cell till you give life. Pray that it is a girl, so you will be allowed to take her back with you to the south. If you birth a boy, you will have to part with him, as he will be kept a prisoner in the north til we decide of his fate. »

*****

There was a knock on the door and the guards let the woman in after they took off her weapons, some knives and two throwing axes.

Grey Wind raised his head and followed her with his yellow eyes.

She was not in fetters, as she had fought on Stannis side against Boltons and Freys. She was still wearing mail and leather like the day before, when she had covered her brother with her cloak. 

« Lady Asha. »

She didn't kneel or anything like that, she just looked at Sansa with a dark insolence that reminded her of the old Theon, the boy who thought he could wed her one day. Pretty was not the word to describe Asha, but she could have been alluring if only she had wear a properly tailored dress.

_Even disarmed, she's dangerous still._

« How many days must my brother wait before you put him to death ? What do you want ? »

She pointed to the shadow that was facing the hearth in a dark corner of the chamber.

« If I wanted his head, I would not have had him humiliated like that for no reason. I'll have a boat ready for you as soon as the snow storm is ended, and you'll take him back with you to the Iron Islands. »

Asha smirked. 

« As if it ended well the first time. »

Grey Wind emitted a low growl. Sansa smoothed her gown and kept her countenance.

« Would the Ironborn accept a woman as their queen, Lady Asha ?  
\- My father wanted it, and my own men are loyal to me. But the answer is no.  
They would not accept a broken eunuch either », she said crudely.

« Who talks about that. » Sansa's voice was as soft and ladylike as ever. « They will accept Theon Greyjoy, who took the greatest castle in the north with twenty men, who was imprisoned and tortured by the enemy. Theon Greyjon who escaped with his captor's wife, killed the Bastard of Bolton and had him eaten by his own dogs. Godly Theon, reborn with the blessing of the Drowned God, harder and stronger. »

The ironwoman looked at her dumbfounded.

« Nice tale, but surely my lady, you understand that my brother is not fit to reign in any way. And he cannot have heirs either.  
\- He will not. He will just be a figurehead. You will reign in his stead. Of course you will need to wed one of your captains quickly, and quickly birth a boy to secure a male heir.  
\- I will not be wed.  
\- You will. You want your brother to live, and I want someone on the Seastone Chair that is not a fool like your father was.  
\- Are you the Queen in the North now, lady Sansa ?  
\- I'm not, and I wouldn't want that. I prefer to stay in the shadows, the way women exert power usually. That is the way I learnt. And I will never wed again. But you will.»  
Asha smiled, a feral smile.  
« So be it, Lady Sansa. I bet the world will go round better with less male fools at the helm.  
\- Male of female, some will never be fit to rule, believe me. »

Sansa beckoned to Theon, who was trying to warm his mangled hands by the fire. 

« We're going home soon, little brother. »

Theon looked to Sansa as to ask for her leave. She nodded.  
Lady Asha hugged her brother before she left the chamber.

« King Theon. What a mummer's farce.  
\- We've already discussed that, Theon. »

Sansa's voice was cold as ice.

« Never forget I can reach to you and take control of you, if I want, even on your islands. Arya is far away across the narrow sea, and she can still warg her wolf. Ramsay was scum, but he's done a fine work breaking your mind, I can't deny it. You're as easy to skinchange as a tamed beast. »

He shivered.

« You won't need that, Lady Sansa... please, I will obey. I don't know how to do otherwise. I'm yours.  I will play king Theon.»

She hugged him and stroked his white hair for a moment like she would have to a pet, till he ceased trembling. Then she called to the guards to take him back to his cell.

She sat before the hearth with the direwolf's head on her lap and scratched his head.

« I must go south with Hazel and a small retinue, Grey Wind. You will stay in Winterfell till I return. I'm going to hunt a beast, a very dangerous beast. I can't hunt it with fangs, or claws, or even swords. I can only use his own weakness to ensnare him. It's small, only a mockingbird, but it's the most dangerous beast in the realm.»

_I have the wolf blood in me, but I will always have a mockingbird roosting on my shoulder. You taught me well, Petyr. Your little bird is coming back.  
I will wait till my wounds look less grievous. You must not think I want to get revenge on you. _

And I need to protect my cousin Sweet Robin too, she thought. I wouldn't want him poisoned by his enemies. He likes me very much. Such a feeble, fickle boy. And very suggestible, too. It would be impossible to skinchange into a normal human being. And that would be a bad thing, too. But Sweet Robin ? He likes to see things fly. Maybe I could show him how you made his mother fly, maybe he would be curious to see the mockingbird fly too, Petyr ? Then my cousin will surely help me retake Riverrun with the help of the knights of the Vale. When I'll have taken his mind the one time, it will be easy to control him.

She thought of her past and her husband, Tyrion. She will need to have her marriage to him annulled. The Ramsay's one had been under duress, and she was already wed. I will never wed again, she thought, but I would like to make an ally of Tyrion, if he is still alive. He is a Lannister, but above all he is a Lannister killer, she thought grimly. I will need capable allies if I want to right all the wrongs I had done to me and my family.

She sat there dreamily, thinking of all that could have been, but she came back quickly to reality and the questions at hand. _I must have a new gown to bring and wear at the Eyrie, Hazel will help me sew it, she needs to learn how to be a proper maid. Something fit for a young heiress of noble blood, but still simple and modest, with the colors of Riverrun. You will love it, Petyr._

She went through various fabrics till she made her choice, and soon she was back to her lady's work, needle in hand.


End file.
